Hatchlings
8th November
Hatching is the umpteenth exhibition by Elizabeth Barsham with Nolan Gallery. This is quite a feat for an artist who works in the world of the imagination because all to often ideas become stale and technique can turn arduous. Not so Miss Barsham, whose invention and energy know no bounds.
An ordinary artist might be tempted to go the way of bigger brushes or monochrome. Another artist might dilute the uncomfortable morphic form or make the painted teeth less sharp but this artist pushes the colour and sharpens the pencil.
What is new is the broad palette and where once arsenic green described squirmy vegetation now luscious pinks and purples creep into the gelatinous seaweed that climbs onto the shore. Colour reflects from surface to surface, sometimes bleeding away to leave transparent forms that go about their business in a glassy world. Combs on cunning chickens are aggressively red and the multiple purple legs of a maybe cephalopod are plum wonderful.
This is wonderful oil technique, wonderful weird, joyous painting that we are lucky to have on our small island. To gain a clue to what all this means read the artist’s statement but she would be just as happy if you made something up because that is what she does, painting the egg to see what hatches.
